


Everything Sounds Smarter in Latin

by singingwasps



Category: Original Work
Genre: Drowning, Gen, Implied Violence, Magic-Users, Urban Fantasy, light body horror, midwestern gothic, nonbinary protagonists
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 15:56:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7898818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singingwasps/pseuds/singingwasps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The great cathedrals of America await in scenic Schubert, with our rolling hills, expansive fields, and beautiful farmland. Visit our distinctive winery tour in the summer, stay to partake in our traditional German Oktoberfest in fall, enjoy our local delicacies all year round!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Sounds Smarter in Latin

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my beta, Luna who patiently helped me do this and also listened to me wail. 
> 
> If you need anything tagged please let me know right away.

   

Things tend to show up in Schubert, which is near Vaux, a town which probably was founded on not being able to read ye olde towne ledgers- like how they used to use long Ss that always look like fs to Corbenec. Vaux attracts weird things like flypaper, and they have, to date met:

  * three vampires,
  * seven werewolves,
  * a parliament of magicians (the proper nomenclature for a group of wizards has never been very clear),
  * at least two walking corpses,



_ and  _ an angel. 

The angel made their teeth hum. 

“They’re definitely vampires,” Delilah says.

Delilah, whose real name is Artemisia but changed it to sound more “witchy”, has  _ probably  _ met vampires. This is, all things considered, a dubious claim. According to Delilah’s stringent list, anyone who wears sunglasses is probably definitely a vampire. However, they’ve  known Delilah since the first grade when she kicked Norm Smith in the knee for calling them a turkey, so they trust her judgement.

This isn’t to say that they hadn’t met vampires before.

“You’re thinking about the sunglasses thing again.”

Corbenec gives her what they hope is a neutral look. It fails.

“They do wear them a  _ lot _ ,” she says petulantly. 

“Delilah I wear sunglasses.”

“You don’t use  _ thou  _ incorrectly.”

They cannot, in good conscience, fault her thinking. 

The two strangers who showed up at the bus stop this morning were dressed in black, but neither were wearing sunglasses, and one was carrying an honest to God piccolo case. Corbenic doesn’t  think vampires play piccolo - and they know for a fact it was one because they eagerly undid the clasps and showed it to them. 

But relaying the whole story would take too much time so they sip their coffee and say, “One of them had a woodwind instrument.”

She chews on her lip and touches the amethyst at her throat, “Do you think we’re on one of those like, glowy things?”

“You’re the psychic, so,” Corbenec says, and trailed off. The fog hasn’t settled down yet, which isn’t unusual, but the reptile part of their brain doesn’t like it. When half of the state used to be farmland, ha has are creeping around every corner, waiting to break your leg. Wind causes the canopy to rustle uncomfortably. A giant, warm plop of rain falls down onto their neck.

Delilah experimentally taps her foot down on the moss where the deer path ends.

“I’m not that kind of psychic,” she says, sounding almost offended.

“What kind of psychic are you,” they retort, setting the coffee down on a stump. 

A mourning dove coos distantly, and a mosquito futilely lands on their sweater-clad arm.

“The other kind,” she said, “the kind that uses sage smudges.”

“I thought smudges were part of that.”

“No the smudges are like, those things you swing at church. They purify, they have nothing to do with latent energies.” she puts on her daytime psychic voice when she says the last part. “It’s different.”

“Right, of course,” they agree, and make their way towards the car.

It’s a creation Frankenstein would be proud of. Gutted and reworked, all seamless parts of other cars. Three different colors, five different eras. Corbenec wasn’t sure  _ how  _ it worked, just that it did. It doesn’t sound so much like a purr, but a lion with indigestion.They can’t turn it off, that would just make the air conditioning - a precious staple in the early days of September- stop working. 

In the forest there are cars that stand like old monuments, wheels gone, machinery gutted. Some of the trees further in have hubcaps nailed to them. 

Some of them have trees growing around them, implacable testaments to adaptation. 

Delilah leans against a tree, looking irritated. 

The moon hangs above them, a petulant semi-circle.

“Anyway,” they say, looking at the wriggling bag in the trunk. “I had to take the ankles the last time.” 

“Gross,” Delilah huffs.

* * *

  


The voice sounds like Krzysztof Penderecki. It shatters and echoes, and is terrifying and beautiful, each word a note, chorusing with a thousand voices. Some of them, they don’t hear. Some of them exist only in the space behind their eyes.

_ Be Not Afraid _ it says, a pulse at the base of their head.

_ Child  _ We  _ are here to Assist. _

The ground no longer exists. Nothing exists, except for the beautiful hum, the chorus of electricity and metal. They tasted iron in their mouth, they smelled ozone like a broken copier, they felt hands beneath the water where they lay. The hands lifted their body from the bottom of the sea, grasping gently, feeling light and immaterial. 

Y _our name is Sandalphon,_ the voices say _Your Name is Ophanim. You are blessed_. 

“My name is-” they sputter, or try to, the water catching in their lungs. They cannot see the voices, and the hands grasp their wrists as they emerge from the water.

_ You are the Multitude of Faith, You are the rings of beryl, You are a million eyes opening and closing, always watching. You are Fire and Judgement. _

_ Be Not Afraid. _

They can’t speak

Y _ou are EnochEziekielGabrielAmbrielCamaelDanielIsraphelJophielUrielZophiel_ the voices no longer synch as a choir of names spill forth.

They do not remember their name. They do not remember why they were sick. They do not remember the water, anymore. There is no water. There is only the voice, and the blinking of a thousand a million a universe of eyes. There is the flapping of wings, a deafening sound, drowning out the rushing of something, drowning out the stones beneath them, drowning out the cicadas. Or maybe the cicadas are the voices. The hands, smooth and perfect, some with six fingers, some with seven, never enough or too little, the hands appear. 

A thrush calls, clicking and desperate, the shuffling of a thousand arms. 

_ Wormwood. Apsinthos.  _

_ Your work is Great. _

_ Be not afraid.  _


End file.
